1 - Introduction

Cooperative Consoles 1.2 implements the sharing of information between multiple instances of the Site/SunNet/Domain Manager Console.

Geographically dispersed organizations with large networks often need a division to handle network management responsibilities among multiple management Consoles. For such network environments, Cooperative Consoles (CC) provides the ability to implement the forwarding of information about selected changes in the state of critical network devices or changes in selected aspects of network topology between multiple management stations running Site/SunNet/Domain Manager. CC provides the flexibility to implement a variety of possible information-sharing configurations between multiple Site/SunNet/Domain Manager consoles.

NOTE - CC assumes that version 2.3 of Site/SunNet/Domain Manager has been installed for management stations on the Solaris 1.x and Solaris 2.x environments.

NOTE - At this release, the CC_Receiver is supported with Domain Manager only. Site Manager and SunNet Manager can only function as a sending station.

1.1 Cooperative Consoles Operation

CC currently enables the forwarding of four types of information between Site/SunNet/Domain Manager consoles:

SNM Events -- These events are generated by agents in response to SNM event requests when conditions specified by the event request (such as a device being unreachable) are satisfied.
Traps -- These are unsolicited events, not generated in response to SNM event requests; an example is a Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) linkDown trap.
SNM Database Traps -- The Site/SunNet/Domain Manager Console generates traps when changes are made to the SNM database, such as the addition of a new element or loading of a background image for a view.
Glyph Traps -- Glyph Traps are generated when the glyph state is changed manually on the Console.

To implement information forwarding between Site/SunNet/Domain Manager consoles, CC uses three executable software modules:

Receiver Application -- A Receiver is installed on each Domain Manager Console machine that is to receive forwarded event and topology information from other Site/SunNet/Domain Manager consoles. A Domain Manager Console machine with a Receiver process running is a receiving station.
Sender Daemon -- A Sender daemon is installed on each Site/SunNet/Domain Manager host that is to forward event and topology information to remote Site/SunNet/Domain Manager consoles. A Site/SunNet/Domain Manager Console machine with a Sender process running is a sending station.
Configuration Tool -- This tool is the user interface for configuring operation of the Sender and Receiver processes on the local host.

The Receiver and Sender processes are described in Chapter 3, "Cooperative Consoles Operation ." The use of the Configuration Tool is explained in Chapter 4, "Using the Configuration Tool ."

A Site Manager and a SunNet Manager Console machine can function as a sending station only. A Domain Manager Console machine can function as both a sending station and a receiving station, or it can serve as only a sending station, or as only a receiving station. The particular distribution of the Sender and Receiver on the Site/SunNet/Domain Manager Console machines in your network depends upon the desired network management configuration. Several sample configurations are discussed in Chapter 2, "Cooperative Consoles Configurations ."

In addition to the Receiver and Sender processes, the SNM Event Dispatcher (na.event) also plays an important role in the functioning of CC on both receiving and sending stations.

The information flow between Site/SunNet/Domain Manager consoles with CC installed is illustrated in Figure 1-1 .

Figure 1-1 Cooperative Consoles Operation

1.2 Adding CC to the Site/SunNet/Domain Manager Console Tools Menu

After installing the CC software, you need to load the cooptools.schema file into Site/SunNet/Domain Manager in order to add the Cooperative Consoles Receiver (Domain Manager only) and Configuration Tool to the Site/SunNet/Domain Manager Console's Tools menu. The methods for loading the cooptools.schema file are:

Restart Site/SunNet/Domain Manager with the -i option.

If you start Site/SunNet/Domain Manager with the -i option after installing CC, this forces Site/SunNet/Domain Manager to reload all the schema files, including cooptools.schema.

NOTE - Starting Site/SunNet/Domain Manager with the -i option erases your runtime management database. To save your current runtime database, you need to use the Console File menu Save\xe4 Management Database option to save your runtime database to an ASCII file. You can then reload this database using the Load\xe4 Management Database option after restarting Site/SunNet/Domain Manager with the -i option.